Scissors and shearing tools have long been used for numerous shearing tasks including paper cutting and food preparation, for example. When used for food preparation, scissors such as kitchen shears may include areas, such as between the scissor arms, that are difficult to thoroughly clean.
Scissors which can be disassembled for cleaning have been heretofore known but suffer various disadvantages. For example, certain disassemblable scissor designs require a user to remove a nut or other fastener at the scissors pivot point. The fasteners are generally small and can be easily dropped or lost. Removal and installation of the fasteners can be cumbersome and increase the risk of a cutting injury, for example, if users have limited manual dexterity.
Pivoting hand tools are heretofore known in which a pair of pivotable arms can be disassembled upon aligning a tabbed post on one of the arms with a slotted keyway on the other arm. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 2,619,965 describes a special purpose scissors having a tabbed post which can be disassembled upon opening the arms to an angular displacement beyond the normal range of use. This design may be suitable for special purposes requiring a relatively narrow range of angular displacements but is unsuitable for certain uses such as kitchen shears, for example wherein a wider range of angular displacements could allow accidental disassembly during normal use.
It would be desirable to provide an easily manufacturable means for controlling the angular position of disassemblable scissor arms to allow easy disassembly and reassembly and to prevent accidental disassembly during use.